Recommendations on projects with multiple buildings?

[kmarshall]

I've searched through this forum on this topic and found some information that seemed like it might be a bit out of date. So I was wondering what the consensus is now with Revit 2009.

I'm looking at a large school project which will have a building that is separated by expansion joints throughout thereby making it a series of smaller independent structures. In the past we've designed each building independently in RAM and uses AutoCAD to generate a unified plan set showing the entire complex together.

But now we are looking at some limitations with Revit and RAM that seem to make that a much tougher effort. I don't see any way that we can import multiple RAM models into one Revit project so it seems RAM will force my hand into making multiple Revit models for each building. I can link all of these together easy enough but once we start cutting sections and doing elevations I forsee a lot of difficulties in making one set of details for the entire project.

In particular we'll need to open each individual building file when we want to add rebar to a foundation section. And linework cleanups won't work on linked files so some details will be tough to touch up.

What have some of you done and how have you avoided some of these pitfalls?

[cmolina]

We have not had much success with RAM and Revit. We have been able to start a model started first in RAM, but we could not send it back to RAM. I would not recommend splitting up your model into individual models unless they are completely independent buildings with seperate grids, plans, sections, ect. What you could do is export your RAM model into independent Revit models and then bind those models into your main Revit model. If you want to keep these as seperate models it is possible to do, but you will have to link your models into one main model and create views in each model which are linked together. This requires alot of extra work and keeping up with views in both models.

[m20roxxers]

Multiple models for each building is not too big of an issue depending what elements are being created in each one.
I would then link and bind the models together till you get a complete building in Revit Structure.
I use this alot for just getting my Architectural elements transferred across correctly and even for ongoing collaboration.

[kmarshall]

Thanks for confirming what we thought to be the best option. We've had limited success with RAM to Revit conversions but by and large we've found that once we're past the DD phase we generally leave the two models as mutually exclusive.

We're thinking we'd start with the individual models because each peice will be completely independent. But we'll bind them all together once we're ready to start getting serious with detailing and cutting sections.